India - Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai has been hired to star in a film about the Taj Mahal.Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai has been hired to star in a film about the Taj Mahal.Rai, 33, will play the role of Mumtaz Mahal, the favorite wife of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan who built the stunning monument for her.Oscar-winning actor Sir Ben Kingsley, who will also be producing the $30 million film, will play Shah Jahan.Rai, a former Miss World, is one of Bollywood's top stars and is hugely popular in her native India.The as yet untitled film will be produced by Kingsley and is scheduled to be shot in India in 2008, Rai's foreign agent Simone Sheffield said.The director of the film has not yet been chosen and the script has yet to be completed, Sheffield said.Another Bollywood actress and former model, Bipasha Basu, will be playing the role of Shah Jahan's daughter, Jahanara.Sheffield said Kingsley had met Basu while co-hosting the Seven New Wonders of the World event in Lisbon in July, where they had discussed the role.Rai, 33, is presently filming Pink Panther 2, starring Steve Martin, Andy Garcia, Jean Reno and John Cleese, in Boston.She has worked in international projects with mixed results. In 2005, she appeared in the British romantic comedy Bride and Prejudice; and she also starred in Provoked, a film based on the autobiography of a victim of domestic abuse, who was convicted of the murder of her husband.Sheffield said Rai was "considering two other films" for next spring.